


In Sickness And In Health

by Izupie



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: (but he's only kind of realising it), Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier-centric, M/M, Sick Richie Tozier, Soft Richie Tozier, They're both soft tbh, even if they're hurling insults at each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22309678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Izupie/pseuds/Izupie
Summary: 'Eddie frowns behind the scarf, unable to pick an emotion to feel out of the jumbled mess that are all demanding his attention at once, as he looks across at Richie, whose nose and cheeks are a blotchy, flushed red. He wipes his nose with the back of his hand and coughs loudly into it, even though once again his hand is so far away from his face that it doesn’t really do anything. Two words spring to his mind simultaneously (‘Cute’and‘Disgusting’respectively) so it’s a fifty-fifty on what will come out of Eddie’s mouth when he opens it to say something. What does come out is, “Oh my god, can youpleasecough into your hand for once in your life."“You betcha, Doctor K,” Richie says around a grin.'
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 10
Kudos: 136





	In Sickness And In Health

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Nyo from the Reddie Clubhouse Discord Server for this prompt!  
> It became weirdly ironic to work on this while I actually had a cold myself..... Spooky  
> 

Eddie is trying desperately to not think of the rash the woollen scarf on his face is probably going to give him. He tries even more desperately not to think of how much Richie’s scarf smells so much like _Richie_. And he tries _even more_ desperately to not think about how long ago it was probably washed.

But it’s the only thing in the clubhouse he can use to protect himself from germs, since it covers his mouth and nose and the whole bottom half of his face, so Eddie will begrudgingly take it. He wishes he’d been able to sneak upstairs for one of his surgical masks when he went home, but he couldn’t risk his mom hearing him in the house. What he’d been able to swipe from the kitchen would have to be good enough.

Richie is lying in the hammock, nearly too long to fit in it properly, with the ratty old blanket Mike donated to the clubhouse on top of him, and Eddie’s coat on top of that, trying to keep him warm.

“You should be at home,” Eddie mutters, looking down at his sleeping face. He’s bundled up to his chin, his skin seems even paler than usual, Eddie can nearly count his freckles, and his long curls are getting stuck to his damp forehead (Eddie resists the urge to gently push them out of the way).

Feeling sick and lying in a hammock in the cold underground of the clubhouse is probably one of Richie’s most recent worst ideas. He should be regulating his temperature with paracetamol and resting somewhere comfortable in a warm room. Down here he could develop a fever, it could worsen into pneumonia, he could bring on a chest infection… The list was long and dire, and Eddie is annoyed that he’s the only one who ever seems to consider these things.

But…

But deep down he gets it. He really does. Comfort of the familiar is something he knows all too well. (If Eddie thinks about it too long, he can almost feel the smooth coolness of an inhaler in his palm.) So, it makes sense that Richie would want to be in the clubhouse if he was feeling sick. But that’s where the impulse should have ended – he shouldn’t have actually _gone_ to the _underground and totally unsuitable for a sick person_ clubhouse in the middle of winter and not told anyone.

It was a good thing Eddie found him there.

“Eds?” Richie croaks, “I thought you’d gone home?”

Eddie ignores the nickname and pulls a bottle of water from his back pocket. All his pockets are stuffed full of things he grabbed from the kitchen that he thought he might need. “I did,” Eddie says eventually, “remember?”

He tries to pass over the bottle, but Richie shakes his head and coughs.

Eddie pulls Richie’s scarf tighter around the back of his head, in a vain attempt to protect himself from the myriad of germs he knows will be expelled from Richie every time the disgusting asshole coughs without covering his own mouth properly. Who goes to the effort of bringing their hand up to cough into it, and then just misses the mark entirely? _And_ it’s hovered so far away from his face it that it wouldn’t catch anything anyway. He might as well have just not bothered with the wasted motion at all and just coughed into the air like an animal-

Apparently, some of his thoughts are playing out through the small strip of his face that is visible above his makeshift mask because Richie suddenly chuckles, and Eddie looks up at him sharply as he finishes pulling on a pair of rubber gloves that he stole from his kitchen cupboard.

“Oh. Must have fallen asleep,” Richie croaks. “It feels like so long ago that I saw your beautiful face appear at my bedside, looking at me with such sweet concern.” He tries for a dramatic, whining kind of voice but it comes out all wrong because of his rough voice, “It was all I had to keep me going when you left me all alone down here.”

“Are you- are you _kidding? You’re_ the one that told me to go! And I literally just left you like five minutes ago- maybe more like ten- I don’t know- not long, okay, because I was getting the supplies that I need to help your sorry ass without my mom catching me. I had to bike all the way there and bike all the way back, you dick.” Eddie’s eyes narrow above the scarf, but the wool muffles the anger in his voice. “And there’s no fucking rats down here you asshole.”

“Then what’s that right behind you?”

“Rich, I’m not ten, I’m not falling for that.”

“What? No, I’m totally serious. How could you not believe me? Do I not always tell my Eddie Spaghetti the truth?”

“Oh my god, do _not_ call me that, I can’t believe you’re literally still using that nickname and-”

“-Shit! The rat’s right by your ankle!”

Eddie screams and jumps, head whipping down to the ground before he can stop himself.

Of course, there’s nothing there.

Richie laughs so hard that he sits up and doubles over in the hammock, the blanket and Eddie’s coat sliding from his shoulders. He’s laughing so hard that the hammock is visibly shaking.

To say that Eddie can understand the meaning behind every one of Richie Tozier’s laughs makes him sound like he pays more attention to his friend’s laughter than he’d like to admit – (even if it’s true and he knows he could provide a detailed chart of _Richie Tozier’s Laughs And What They Mean_ ) – so when he hears his laughter turn into a pained, weak, breathy chuckle, Eddie immediately files the sound away under _Never Want To Hear Again._

He frowns behind the scarf, unable to pick an emotion to feel out of the jumbled mess that are all demanding his attention at once as he looks across at Richie, whose nose and cheeks are a blotchy, flushed red. He wipes his nose with the back of his hand and coughs loudly into it, even though once again his hand is so far away from his face that it doesn’t really do anything. Two words spring to his mind simultaneously ( _‘Cute’_ and _‘Disgusting’_ respectively) so it’s a fifty-fifty on what will come out of Eddie’s mouth when he opens it to say something. What does come out is, “Oh my god, can you _please_ cough into your hand for once in your life.”

“You betcha, Doctor K,” Richie says around a grin.

Eddie has only ever heard him laugh like that when it’s the two of them; when he’s so open and unguarded. His glasses are sitting crooked on his nose from where he’s now wiping tears out of his eyes, and although Eddie’s fists are clenched tight against his sides and an angry flush is creeping over his skin, he wishes he could bottle moments like these.

“You-” Eddie begins, through clenched teeth, until Richie begins to cough and cough. The hammock is still shaking, and so is Richie’s skinny frame, except now it’s in time with each painful sounding cough, and the dramatic change from a second ago is so jarring that Eddie finds himself instantly at Richie’s side, rubbing soothing circles onto his back, over the warm material of his bright yellow hoodie. His back is broadening out, he thinks suddenly. Does his back feel too warm? He can’t really tell under the gloves he’s wearing. Is this too warm? _Fever_ warm? Or just regular warm for someone who’s been lying on a hammock under a blanket and a winter coat?

Eddie doesn’t realise he’s been rubbing his friend’s back more vigorously until he hears a weak chuckle from Richie, who’s coughing fit has faded. “You trying to wear the material out?”

“Uh- sorry.”

But even though Eddie intends to move his hand away, instead it just stops between Richie’s shoulder blades.

Richie clears his throat and winces and Eddie finally kicks into action again, pulling out the bottle of water Richie refused earlier. “Oh, here.”

“Thanks, Eds,” Richie says in a voice that is so whispered and tender it makes Eddie feel like maybe he’s the one coming down with a fever.

Eddie scowls at the nickname though, unable not to rise to the teasing, and even though the effect is mostly lost behind the scarf, there must be something in the way his eyebrows have scrunched together because it makes Richie smile again just as he brings the bottle to his lips.

He hands it back and their fingers briefly touch, but because Eddie’s still wearing gloves, he can’t feel the contact properly and it strikes something deep within him that if he wasn’t so afraid of the germs he could have. Should he ache like this just to have touched his friend’s fingers over passing a bottle of water between them? The thought brings up memories of sharing the hammock together a couple of years ago, and the casual touches they’d pass as they were trying to find a comfortable position to cram themselves both into.

“You should go home,” Richie says suddenly, lying back down.

“ _What?_ ”

Richie shakes his head and his growing curls bounce with the movement. “Nah that was- I didn’t mean to say it like that. I was just-” Richie sniffs loudly and wipes his nose again with the back of his hand.

“Ew, gross,” Eddie mutters.

“I told you to go when you first got here because I didn’t want you to get sick, and I really meant it. So, when you went, I thought… I mean, I wasn’t expecting you to come back. So, you should… go again. Because I still don’t want you to catch this.”

Silence follows that and Eddie is glad that the scarf hides his tender smile.

Richie continues in a small voice that sounds unnatural coming out of his mouth, when Eddie is so used to nothing but loud jokes and trash talk, “I mean, I can suffer in silence, but I know you’d do nothing but bitch and moan and make me take care of you if you got like this.”

Oh, looks like he doesn’t need the volume to still be providing the trash talk.

“You?” Eddie scoffs, smile twisting into a frown. “Suffer in silence? I don’t think so. For one thing, what do you call all of this? How much of this cold are you faking just to get me to take care of _you,_ huh, Trashmouth?”

“You got me,” Richie declares, “I just wanted all your attention all to myself. But listen, if your mom comes down with a cold in the next few days, just remind her that she’s the one that couldn’t resist me – and I warned her that we should stay away from each other until I got better, but you know how she is with me, Eddie.”

“Oh, you are the most disgusting- you’re just- you are _so_ not funny, asshole,” Eddie huffs.

Richie brings his hand up to salute him, but he suddenly squints like he does when he’s trying to prove to Eddie that he can _see just fine_ without his glasses on, and Eddie realises what’s about to happen a split second before it actually happens – he dives forwards with a tissue produced from his pocket, from the stash he stole from his mom’s fancy pink tissue holder, and shoves it to Richie’s nose.

Richie sneezes into it.

Eddie has never been more disgusted in his life. (And the bar is set absurdly high.)

He screeches loudly and hurls it away like it’s bitten him.

Richie’s guffaw mingles into Eddie’s screeched curses as he flings off the rubber gloves too.

“Oh, shit! Did you just do that on a fucking impulse?” Richie manages through his croaking laughter, looking a million times better just from another good laugh.

(Maybe laughter was the ultimate bullshit medicine?)

(Or maybe it only worked that well on Richie.)

“I didn’t- I didn’t even think, I just went right in there. Oh my god, why did I do that!”

“Not really the bodily fluids I wanted on you Eds.”

“Fuck you Richie!”

Eddie rubs his palms repeatedly on his pants and shudders all over, and his extreme (but not unreasonable) response seems to sober Richie up because his laughter and his smile fades and he looks like someone who’s actually sick again when he says, as softly as he can with his rough voice, “Seriously, Eddie. I think you should go home. I’ll be fine. Me and the rats are on speaking terms now.” He raises a hand out of the layers of blanket and coat covering him and clicks his fingers into a gun shape.

Eddie’s eyebrows pull in tightly together.

After a moment of rare silence Richie sighs, and the sound is deep. It means: no jokes this time. “I honestly don’t want you to get sick, so I really do think you should go. But, like, really, in a completely not-joking kind of way.”

There’s something in his tired looking, magnified eyes that seems to be at odds with what he’s saying.

 _No_ , his shining dark eyes say, _please don’t leave me._

Something in Eddie’s gut clenches at the thought, and he realises with a strange certainty that Richie could be the grossest fucking person in the whole world and sneeze into his bare fucking hand a hundred times and he wouldn’t just leave him like this. Wouldn’t leave him _ever._ Maybe that was its own kind of bravery. (Though being brave didn’t mean he wouldn’t gag or scream about it.)

Eddie yanks the scarf off from behind his head, leans down, and grabs Richie’s face between his bare hands before he can really think about the spreading of germs. His fingertips are just poking into the curls above Richie’s ears and Eddie has to resist the urge to push them in higher, trying to remember that his friend is sick and _focus Eddie_. Instead he grips tighter and sets his face into a grim expression.

Richie’s cheeks are so warm – but maybe that isn’t just from his cold?

“I’m not leaving,” Eddie says firmly.

Richie’s eyes are wide, but he blinks, and a smile stretches wide and slow onto his face. “Well don’t blame me if you catch it too.”

“I’m staying here with you only while you have a nap, and then we’re going back to your house, okay? Because I am not going to be responsible for you getting some kind of infection just because you’re being stubborn. Deal?”

“You drive a hard bargain, Eds.”

“Now, move your skinny spider legs over so I can get in here.” Eddie releases Richie and climbs into the other end of the hammock – with absolutely no grace at all – and nearly tips them both out as he practically falls into it and puts himself under the blanket and coat covering Richie.

“Eddie- what the fuck-”

“If I’m going to catch whatever you’ve got anyway, might as well keep you warm while you nap. I can tap you with my foot every so often to check you’re still alive.” Eddie punctuates his words with an obnoxious tap of his foot onto Richie’s cheek. “But you, uh, you better remember this so you can repay the favour when I come down with it too,” Eddie adds gently, looking away.

Silence follows and Eddie becomes concerned enough to glance back at Richie.

He’s smiling.

Eddie feels a flush creeping up his neck and begins to wonder if he’s caught the cold already.

“Eddie?”

“Y-Yeah?”

“Can you hold another tissue out for me, I think I’m gonna sneeze again.”

“Fuck you!”


End file.
